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Enjoy it! Only 48 hours of winter wonderland

This is it, Toronto. After the biggest snow storm in five years, you’ve got 48 hours to enjoy the winter wonderland before higher temperatures melt it all away.

So pull out those skis and make a snowman while you’re at it, because Friday’s chaos will fade to a distant memory by Monday, when the forecast calls for 6 degrees and rain.

Jim Rankin's commute to One Yonge normally takes five minutes. Today, it was a snowy twenty-plus. See the drive in a minute.

While the army wasn’t called in, the storm did bring some upheaval to the city with airports cancelling more than half their flights — almost 900 at Pearson alone — and the OPP telling people to stay off highways.

But with a big push overnight, much of what was disrupted should be up and running by Saturday morning.

The storm blanketed the city with 31 centimetres of snow by the end of the day Friday, with an additional four centimetres expected overnight.

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“It’s a considerable amount of snow,” he said. “That’s not to say we’re not ready for it, but it’ll just take a while to clean it up.”

Side streets should be snow-free by the end of the day Saturday, he said.

While the highways will be clear by Saturday morning people should still drive with caution, said OPP spokeswoman Linda Wolf.

Commuters get off the 504 street car at Bay and King Sts. as snow buffets Toronto in the early morning hours of Feb. 8, 2013. (CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR)

“We tend to see a lot of collisions on the day after a major snowstorm, and it’s because people think the roadways are fine,” she said. “The roadways aren’t really ready for that. They’re still slick.”

At least three people died during the storm — two fatal accidents in Durham Region and one snow shovelling death in Hamilton.

Thousands of people were stranded at the airports, as 61 per cent of flights at Pearson were cancelled.

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Frustrated passengers spent 13 hours on the tarmac aboard a Sunwing flight bound for Panama City before they were finally returned to the gate. “No food, no water, except for two packages each, at four-hour intervals, of corn chips, and one half glass of water,” said passenger Sherry Tamilia.

A Sunwing spokesman told local media part of the problem was due to de-icing issues.

Air Canada reported “major de-icing issues” affecting all airlines and could not say when normal operations would resume.

With the storm moving on to New England and the Maritimes, flights headed in those directions could stay grounded Saturday.

As of Friday night, almost 200 Saturday flights had already been cancelled to deal with the backlog from Friday, said Greater Toronto Airports Authority spokeswoman Natalie Mohamed.

“The de-icing facility is still working, just on a lower capacity than normal. The flights have been cancelled because of a combination of the weather and the glitch in the software, which made a big bottleneck,” she said.

The storm left passengers in the lurch, without any idea if or when they would depart.

Matt Arends and his family were headed for Disney World but found themselves stuck in the blizzard.

After waiting on the tarmac for six hours, Arends, his wife, and their two children, 6 and 11, were sent back into the terminal and told their flight was cancelled.

“If we don’t make it to Orlando by (Saturday), we’ve lost our entire Disney cruise,” he said.

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